1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein generally relate to operation inhibiting systems, image forming apparatuses, operation inhibition information providing apparatuses, and operation inhibiting methods, and particularly relate to an operation inhibiting system, an image forming apparatus, an operation inhibition information providing apparatus, and an operation inhibiting method that inhibit users from modifying a program configuration used in the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some image forming apparatuses referred to as multifunction devices or multifunction peripherals may allow programs to be installed or uninstalled after shipment (see Japanese Patent Application Publication 2008-16013, for example). Users modify the configurations of programs installed in image forming apparatuses in accordance with needs in work, thereby attaining improvements in work efficiency.
There are programs that should not be uninstalled by users due to reasons related to proper system operations. For example, some programs may have interdependency therebetween. Uninstalling a program that is depended upon makes unusable a program that depends on the uninstalled program. Interdependency between programs may differ depending on installed program configurations. This gives rise to a complicated situation in which programs that should not be uninstalled may differ from apparatus to apparatus.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to provide an operation inhibiting system, an image forming apparatus, an operation inhibition information providing apparatus, and an operation inhibiting method that can inhibit modification to the configuration of installed programs.